So in the time I’ve spent with various organizations I’ve always heard different ways to increase the difficulty of your Kettle training.

I know I’ve heard Coach Martone say it before, “Alright now that you got it, let’s make it more harder.”

I feel this is true with most any style of training people are always trying to add the next step make it more difficult. So how do you make the simple Iron of the Kettlebell harder? Add sets? Add Reps? Add, add, add, reps, reps, reps…

More reps right? Maybe not so much, I once read about a tactic some lifters would use. It involved a pretty simple trick really. If a lifters grip was still causing issues and piling the reps on wasn’t helping (cause honestly more isn’t always best), then the answer was simple. Just add some soap to the handle.

Now I said I read about this, I never said I tried it. Honestly it really didn’t seem like a great idea. But the theory of it, the THEORY, seemed sound enough. Put a little soap on the handle take a weight that may not be challenging for you and make it incredible difficult to hold onto. Kind of like trying to do a snatch set with a trout I assume. Doesn’t sound very easy now does it?

Well I was always a bit worried I’d drop a bell on my head if it had a soaped handle. So I just took that bit of knowledge and but it in the back of my head as a cool knowledgebomb to drop at seminars. Cool enough story I assume but again a soaped handle not for me.

But then when I was out in Russia I was introduced to way to challenge your grip just in that way. Except it wasn’t soap that we were using for the handle it was something else.

If you think this is so simple its stupid your right. But it works, ask anyone who has under taken the challenge of a gloved kettlebell set and they’ll tell you how stupid it really is. But is you want a grip that’ll turn coal into diamonds just pony up for a cheap pair of gloves and get to training. There is a problem that can come when you challenge your grip sometimes though. It works, and when your grip starts to go you begin to over grip the bell. This can in turn lead to a unfortunate side effect of intense kettlebell training.

Tears

It happens to the best of us. You take care of your callouses you do everything right but you tear. You tear and your right in the middle of a training cycle. What can you do? Well I have pretty simple remedy I learned years back when I was still a RKC.

Sock sleeves

First things first take a pair of old socks and some scissors.Click Here

May not be a fashion statement but its functional. It doesn’t bind as much as tape and it does allow the bell to move correctly in your hand. But unlike with the gloves that may have helped in aiding in your tears you still have use of your fingers. Yeah it does have some what of the same affect as gloves because it makes the bell harder to hold onto. So again your just adding another level of difficulty to things.

But hey beggars can’t be chooser and you can’t ever have a strong enough grip.